familypediawikiaorg-20200214-history
Talk:William Cowan (1750-1809)
Programming to reduce duplication of data entry Margie, at some point in the near future I'm going to start working on the devlopment of PHP extensions for this site that will solve some of your concerns (and mine) with duplicate date entry. To do that we need to adopt a certain (very limited) amount of standardization---so the program can recognize what's a DOB and what's a DOD, etc and who it belongs to. My thinking is that we can accomplish this with the least amount of fuss by adopting a tabularized format. That gives automatic keys to things like DOB's etc. To accomodate this I've generally gone to a tablular display of vita data and child lists, as it generally simplifies both the layout and the presentation of information. As I grow more familiar with the ways of the Wiki, I find that keeping things as simple as possible (ie, avoiding unnecessary duplication, among otherthings, works best. Also, I've figured out an interim dodge that avoids haveing to duplicate child lists on the mother's page as well as on the fathers page. I'll be adding this method to this page shortly. At anyrate, if you don't like the way this looks, let me know and I'll revert the page to the way you originally had it. Bill 23:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC) :Bill and Margie - the development of Semantic MediaWiki since mid-2009 means you don't need to do any PHP coding. Just let some of us add the little bits of template that are needed to link even more pages with less future work and to display pages such as Descendancy tables. User:AMK152 has started it. I've added a sensor page and a descendants subpage. They will gradually improve, with no extra work on them, as you (i.e. we all) upgrade the descendants' pages. — Robin Patterson (Talk) 05:12, June 6, 2010 (UTC) Tinkling Springs Margie---I don't quite understand the basis for the connection of William Cowan to Tinkling Springs. Born 1750 He wouldn't have been old enough to have been an adult member, and marry Jane c. 1773 in Castle's Woods. What evidence ties him to Tinkling Spring? Wigton icon Also, I insertd the Wigotn photo icon on Williams page a few days ago. As I think about it, using the Wigton icon image on William Cowan's page is probably not the best idea. Its his wife Jane whose the Wigton, not William. Their children get the Wigton icon, if you so choose, or perhaps there's no need for this idea anyway. What I was thinking of was having a quick way to identify a Wigton Walker descendant---but that may be too idiosyncratic. You, for example, might prefer a "Cowan" icon to identify descendants of William. So, what do you think?--Bill 02:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC) --Cowantex 19:18, 20 August 2006 (UTC) Bill ... you're right, I need to do some research to get me back of William Cowan and Jane Walker. I'm human, I admit ... made a "leap of faith" that I hadn't realized until an objective set of eyes reviewed the work. Now, to figure out which of the Cowans on Beverly Manor actually were William's father. A long held family tradition was/is that his father was named John ... and that would fit in with the "southern" naming tradition found in "Albion's Seed" since William Cowan and Jane Walker named their first son "John", if you follow my logic. As to the icon ... hmmm ... William Cowan and Jane Walker's children are, essentially, Walker descendants so the icon applies ... but, is there a way to add a second icon? If so, I can scale down the coat of arms from CCD and it could go under the Wigton icon and would indicate that the subject descends from both lines? Clicking the COWAN icon could take the viewer back to William Cowan's page? Margie---I think this is what is meant by "collaborative effort"! Hi margie. I took out the , to keep the item from showing up in the TOC---it made the width of the TOC box so large that it made it akward to read. But I left your statement intact. The icon can be dropped, changed, replaced, whatever seems appropriate. William isn't himself Wigton, but his children are. We could add a second "Cowan" icon---whatever you think helpful. I'm not sold on the current Wigton Icon---seems like something more "iconic" could be found, but I didn't want to spend the time comeing up with something better. This imge was available on Wikiepedia, and worked, so I used it. We could put a second Icon on the page to identify it as "Cowan", then put the same icon on his children's pages along with the Wigton icon.---but eventually that's going to get pretty cumbersome---when we start adding additional icons for the children's spouses, etc. Would get so crowded you'd loose whatever advantage you'd gained with the iconic approach. So I'm thinking "one icon". It either follows the surname, or it follows the preferences of the descendants. However, if you've got something you like, and can get it to me, or uploaded and let me know what the file title is, I'll play around with it and see what seems to work.--Bill 20:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC) Link within a page? How do I make a link to a section of a page ... For example ... William Cowan's page ... but the Alternative Interpretation section? Where did William Cowan die? I thought we had learned that he really did die in Blount County---something about him dying of a heart attack while walking with a grandson who remained in Blount County. Did I misunderstand something? Bill 16:53, 11 September 2007 (UTC) Question ... about creating future pages Are there any wiki "rules" that would prevent creating a series of wiki pages that would be able to substitute for the loss of Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness? The current workaround is on Facebook ... but it is difficult to locate a volunteer, etc. My thought was/is that wiki pages could relatively easily recreate the format that RAOGK had had ... If my idea wouldn't violate any wiki rules, please let me know ... I can then create a couple of basic pages and post on Facebook what I've started. (On wikipedia, there's a discussion of taking down the wiki page about RAOGK ... so, I gathered that trying to create RAOGK pages there would not be allowed. I was/am hoping that since familypedia is genealogy oriented, that familypedia would be a good place to put the pages?) Please get back to me at: mcowan@erols.com Many thanks. Hope to hear from an administrator soon ... hopefully, with a positive answer. (I tried signing ... but it insists on converting my signature to an IP address) 02:43, March 1, 2012 (UTC) 02:41, March 1, 2012 (UTC) 02:40, March 1, 2012 (UTC) :An laternative is to create a new wiki here, so that you can complete customize it for your purposes. Thurstan 07:08, March 1, 2012 (UTC) :Thurstan ... does that mean that if I created a new wiki (as you suggested above) that I could call it Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness wiki? If so, that would be GREAT!! :Appreciate any thoughts you and others have on the topic ... :The original RAOGK had a main (Landing) page with a table ... each state was in the table (5 col. x 10 rows) ... each state then linked to a state page ... The state page then had a table indicating volunteer's name, the county/counties they were willing to research in, and another column for them to indicate what they would research (obits, public records, cemeteries, etc.), etc. RAOGK was free ... occasionally volunteers would specify requests for reimbursements for copies, gas, or the like ... but basically free. It was really a sad day when Bridget Schneider died and the site went down ... :It would be sooooo easy to set up the basic wiki shell for what Bridget had on her site ... and individuals could add/delete their information/interests at will. (Bridget had been the administrator and monitored the site to make sure that people didn't make the same request of multiple volunteers, etc. ) :So ... if I created a new wiki named Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness wiki ... I'd be an administrator? I wouldn't want to be the sole administrator ... how would others be made administrators? :Thanks for the help!!! :Cowantex 14:01, March 1, 2012 (UTC) ::Well, I haven't tried it, but I think the answer to your questions is yes, you can call it what you want (I think it has a name, and then a "short form" that appears in the URL, so you could use "RAOGK" for the short form). You would be sole administrator when you started, as founder you would have all the privileges, which would mean you could give administrator rights to other registered users, so once it was set up, you could empower a team of administrators, or at least have a backup or two, depending on exactly how you wanted it to work. Thurstan 20:46, March 1, 2012 (UTC) Thurston ... more questions .. HELP ... hope someone is listening ... I created this RAOGK wiki yesterday and really need some help. 1. Since I created the site, shouldn't I show as owner or admin or something? I appear to be accessing the site as a regular user... How do I find out what responsibiliites and/or privileges the owner has? As an admin are you able to change my privileges on that wiki? Is there anyway to have my email associated with the site be my new yahoo email ... raogk_mcowan@yahoo.com (vs. my cowantex ... mcowan @ erols.com)?? I notice when I click the link for your name, it takes me to a page for you and you have a green bar beside your name tha says ADMIN ... 2. How can I add administrators? 3. I don't like the template I've chosen ... how do I change it to something "simple"??? (I like the old plain white pages of the early familypedia/genwiki pages. 4. I have some tables on my pages ... the outer border shows but the cell borders do not. What do I need to do in the code to make all cells have borders? I also want the table to take up more of the page ... how do I do that? 5. How can I get rid of the annoying "Recent Activity" panel that persists on the right side of the page? 6. I had HOPED when creating this wiki that people could get to it easily by entering: raogk.wikia.com When I enter that, the page that displays is: http://raogk.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WikiActivity I have to click the wiki name in the upper left corner to get to my "home" page: http://raogk.wikia.com/wiki/Random_Acts_of_Genealogical_Kindness_Wiki Is there ANY way to "code" it so that raogk.wikia.com will take me to my "home" page ... I want this simple for people!! 7. Also, if I have an internal link ... how do I code it so that clicking the link either opens in a new browser tab or a new browser window? Same for an external link. 8. Is there a way to EDIT the contents of a Talk page, vs. having to ADD another topic? My wiki doesn’t seem to let me EDIT the Talk page. Am sure I'll have more questions ... Cowantex 14:06, March 3, 2012 (UTC) :Okay, let's move the discussion to http://raogk.wikia.com/wiki/User_talk:Cowantex Thurstan 21:37, March 3, 2012 (UTC)